Using a combination of migration studies, political sociology, and policy studies, this paper explores the contradictions and violence of immigration detention, its architectures, and its audiences. The concept of “detention-as-spectacle” is developed to make sense of detention’s hypervisible and obscured manifestations in the European Union. We focus particularly on two case studies, the United Kingdom and Malta, which occupy different geopolitical positions within the EU. Detention-as-spectacle demonstrates that detention is less related to deterrence and security than to displaying sovereign enforcement, control, and power. A central aspect of the sovereign spectacle is detention’s purported ability to order and even halt “crises” of irregular immigration, while simultaneously creating and reinforcing these crises. The paper concludes by examining recent disruptions to the spectacle, and their implications.

中文翻译：

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扣留眼镜

本文结合移民研究，政治社会学和政策研究，探讨了移民拘留所的矛盾和暴力，其建筑和听众。提出“以眼镜方式拘留”的概念是为了使拘留在欧洲联盟中表现得非常明显和模糊。我们特别关注英国和马耳他这两个案例研究，它们在欧盟内部占据着不同的地缘政治立场。从本质上讲，拘留表明，拘留与威慑和安全的关系较小，而与展示主权的执行，控制和权力无关。主权奇观的一个中心方面是，据称拘留有能力命令甚至制止非正规移民的“危机”，同时制造和加剧这些危机。